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Here’s me, all reading Secret Six and having a blast of a time; there’s you, all wondering
what turpentine tastes like and reading some knock-off of Secret Six like Justice
League or the Amazing Spider-Man. Here’s
me, thoroughly enjoying characters like Strix, Porcelain and Ferdie; there’s
you, sticking a fork into a live electrical outlet and announcing to no one
that you avoid Gail Simone’s books because of her “political agenda.” “I prefer
action in my comic books,” you begin, while spooning gunpowder into your tea,
“not a bunch of people being polite and discussing gender all the time.”
(Here’s me, reading about Catman fighting Aquaman and then telling him he
smells like tuna and chortling lightly at your foolishness.) “I like Gail
Simone,” you claim, as you use a Q-Tip on the inside of your fucking ear, for goodness sakes, “but she’s too
reserved for my tastes.” (Here’s me, reading a scene where Big Shot is yelling
at the other team members for having weird sex on the couch and smiling
inwardly at your closed-mindedness.) You don’t read Secret Six and that’s your problem, not mine. If you want to get a
glimpse of the fun of this book, read on to my review. But know that it does
not, in any way, simulate the experience of actually reading Secret Six!

Explain It!:

For this review, we’re going to become
mystery-solving sleuths just like our favorite band of anti-social misfits, the
Secret Six. They’re the group with the hippie van and the talking dog, right?
So today we’re going to investigate the Case of the Missing Comic Book, because
I believe—with all of my might!—that this story arc was truncated by one issue
while it was being produced. Why do I think that? Well, I have to cynically
note that this arc is four issues—not the usual five or six that fit neatly
into a trade collection. For another thing, the ending is very weird...but
let’s not get ahead of ourselves! We open with a shot of Thrumm, one of the
Lovecraftian Old Gods that have been leaking into our dimension since the
Secret Slicks started destroying these alabaster pillars in order to save Black
Alice. Aw, what the heck, I’ll do a recap: Black Alice’s power to temporarily
drain magic from DCU’s Dark Line (if such a thing even still exists) was
weakening mystical defenses against these terrible Old Gods, who apparently
always want into our dimension no matter how much we tell them they’re not
invited. The DC magic club wants to kill Black Alice to stop this process,
which doesn’t sit well with the Secret Shlicks, but she is overloading on magic
and is going to die anyway. Meanwhile these hooded nerds that call themselves
the Children of Arion, who say they are “true Atlanteans” but are so obviously
not, tell the Seacrest Six that they can destroy these four giant pillars made
of alabaster and that will free Alice, and oh guess what that will also allow
the Old Gods into our dimension and stuff I totally forgot to mention that heh
heh. So the Sneakret Six have been doing this, they already destroyed two
pillars and fought some blobulous Old God last issue so this is totally
happening you guys.

Okay, so in the present we see some awesome shots of
Superman just beating down this robot that looks to have come from Brainiac
because it’s got the Brainiac symbol for a face. This is really some awesome
Superman, not only because he is expertly and swooningly rendered by Dale
Eaglesham, but because he looks like he is being Superman! Just eye-zapping
robots and smiling as he saves helicopter pilots and being the awesome hero we
love to see him being. If these three pages don’t make you grin, then go to the
brain doctor because there is definitely something very wrong with you. His
whole punching ballet is narrated via captions by Zatanna, who is waiting on
top of the Daily Planet to tell Superman that the Secret Dicks are in
Metropolis to wreak havoc. While that’s going on, our posse is in the subway
system below looking for…two alabaster pillars? Ah HA, my faithful sleuths,
here’s another clue to our mystery: why would there suddenly be two pillars in this location when there
was but one in the others? Could it
be that a final showdown with the toughest alabaster obelisk of all was
foregone for some untold reason?

Meanwhile, back at Scandal Savage’s apartment (where
Black Alice was dropped off a couple of issues ago, forgot to mention that in
the recap) Alice is begging Scandal to kill her so she doesn’t inadvertently
cause Armageddon. It seems pretty heroic of her, but more importantly there’s
this scene where Alice was walking through a potential futuristic hellscape
that is so incredibly rendered by Dale Eaglesham that it has become my cell
phone’s wallpaper. Over in Metropolis’ underground, Superman shows up and of
course the Secret Six attacks him because they are incredibly awesome. Then we
cut back to Scandal Savage’s apartment, and we see her kill Black Alice with
her gauntlet that has Totally Not Wolverine Claws on it! But Black Alice
doesn’t die? No, it turns out that she has been the embodiment of some Old God,
I think, that possessed her body when she died in a car accident several years
ago. And Black Alice decides, hey, she doesn’t feel like dying or destroying
the world right now, so she walks through a portal, leaving a confused Scandal
and Ragdoll and readership behind.

While Superman fights the Sweetest Six, Shawna Belzer
knocks him about with her telekinetic powers, but the more interesting thing is
that Porcelain touches Superman and forms cracks throughout his body! Will he
survive this? Black Alice shows up via the fuck you portal and tells everyone
she’s all better now, so stop fighting, k? And then at the very end we see
Alice walking down the sidewalk to the suburban home she shares with the rest
of the crew (if you will remember from several issues ago), wrapping everything
up in some neat exposition: Superman “got over” being cracked up by Porcelain,
and oh yeah the Children of Arion who we didn’t even fucking see in this issue
were eaten by Thrumm, the evil monster from the prologue, which then fucked off
to parts unknown I guess. And that’s our final clue, my mystery-solving and
gorgeous readers, in the Case of the Missing Comic Book: the ending landed like
a wet fart and was mostly handled in exposition detailing things that happened
off-panel. What. The. Fuck.

It was pretty disappointing, I can’t lie. I love Dale
Eaglesham’s work from here to eternity, and particularly loved how he seemed to
channel Bernie Wrightston for some panels of Thrumm. Gail Simone’s talent at
characterization is evident, as well, at the beginning of the book; the way the
members of the Secret Six interact with Superman is so telling about who they
are and why they would imperil our reality to save a friend. But then it all
kinds of wraps up in four pages, neatly explaining away a few things that, you
know, I would rather have seen explored. Why is this comic book such a punching
bag at DC Comics? Gail routinely mentions that Dan Didio champions this book,
so does editor Jim Chadwick have some problem with it? Or is it always on the
verge of getting usurped by some line-wide brouhaha that might derail its
detailed story lines? I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it. When this
book is kept in the dark, it is a confusing, frustrating lot of patter that
includes a lot of superfluous characters—I didn’t even mention a whole thing
between Porcelain and the banshee Jeannette, because it barely figured into the
plot. When this book is allowed to shine, it is a beacon on our path to wisdom
and understanding. Catman’s butt.

Bits and
Pieces:

This story arc was cut by one issue for some reason,
I would swear to it. As a result, the ending of this issue and the whole tale
of Black Alice and the Alabaster Pillars fairly well sucked. Between the pause
for Convergence and truncated stories
like this, Secret Six could join an
abuse survivors group…if the book survives, that is. Ah well, at least Dale
Eaglesham’s art is spectacular, as always.

Sweet mother of god! I kept flicking back through the pages to see if I had somehow skipped a some but nope, it just is that stupid. Do you think I can get a refund on this and the other issues in this arc. After all DC and Simone did kind of promise to tell me a story and in the end they just couldn't be bothered. No writer, no editor nor publisher could ever stand over this as story that respects the reader or even respects the craft of comics. Can you tell that I'm pissed off? I was hoping this book was going to scratch the itch I have for the Dark DC Universe but I'm dropping it.

It is demoralizing, because you see glimmers of hope and funny points in the book, but the way this arc ends you can't help but feel ripped off. I would stake this website on my claim that this arc lost an issue while being produced--there were four alabaster pillars to tear down, but conveniently two of them are side-by-side in Metropolis? Not a good look!

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